Please Help Resurrect Thoth
For those familiar with Usenet, you might recall that Brian Clark retired his world class newsreader ? Thoth ? some years ago due to falling sales. In fact, the last days of his efforts to earn a living by coding for the Mac platform were met with no sales at all, a direct result of wholesale piracy made possible by forged registration codes. Without a doubt, many registered users felt let down by this, rather than understand that Brian worked on his shareware full time and simply could not continue without financial remuneration for his services.
For those of you not familiar with Usenet, know that Brian has contributed much to the Mac community over the years. His initial work was based on the good work of John Norstad and his open source newsreader named NewsWatcher. Brian leveraged that code to build YA-NewsWatcher which the Mac community benefited greatly from. It was only years later that Brian parlayed that experience into gainful work by creating the incredibly capable Thoth.
It will be a great loss to the Mac platform should Thoth fade into obscurity. Though not updated in several years, it arguably remains the most powerful and flexible newsreader for the Macintosh platform. It would be a real loss to see Brian cease development for good. Whether one prefers Thoth over another newsreader is irrelevant as we all benefit from it being a viable product. It raises the bar for Mac newsreaders, and for the standard of excellence that we demand of Mac software.
NEWS FLASH: THOTH IS BACK
Well, I guess that should be expounded upon. During the years that Thoth has been pulled from the marketplace, Brian has been diligently working on the codebase as time allowed. In fact, he now has two updates ready to go. Version 1.8 is rock solid, and Version 2.0 appears ready but for exhaustive testing ? it is a Universal Binary and Brian has no MacIntel kit to verify how it performs in a mixed environment. Both are substantial upgrades, and he is strongly considering releasing them to the public for a fee, of course. This costs money, however, and Brian is putting out feelers to determine if enough support exists to make this feasible. I implore you to encourage Brian.
Please show your support for Thoth by writing Brian at... [email protected]
For those of you not familiar with Usenet, know that Brian has contributed much to the Mac community over the years. His initial work was based on the good work of John Norstad and his open source newsreader named NewsWatcher. Brian leveraged that code to build YA-NewsWatcher which the Mac community benefited greatly from. It was only years later that Brian parlayed that experience into gainful work by creating the incredibly capable Thoth.
It will be a great loss to the Mac platform should Thoth fade into obscurity. Though not updated in several years, it arguably remains the most powerful and flexible newsreader for the Macintosh platform. It would be a real loss to see Brian cease development for good. Whether one prefers Thoth over another newsreader is irrelevant as we all benefit from it being a viable product. It raises the bar for Mac newsreaders, and for the standard of excellence that we demand of Mac software.
NEWS FLASH: THOTH IS BACK
Well, I guess that should be expounded upon. During the years that Thoth has been pulled from the marketplace, Brian has been diligently working on the codebase as time allowed. In fact, he now has two updates ready to go. Version 1.8 is rock solid, and Version 2.0 appears ready but for exhaustive testing ? it is a Universal Binary and Brian has no MacIntel kit to verify how it performs in a mixed environment. Both are substantial upgrades, and he is strongly considering releasing them to the public for a fee, of course. This costs money, however, and Brian is putting out feelers to determine if enough support exists to make this feasible. I implore you to encourage Brian.
Please show your support for Thoth by writing Brian at... [email protected]
Comments
and a commercial one at that?
/steps back and waits for a mod to burst in.....
Originally posted by TednDi
first post.
and a commercial one at that?
/steps back and waits for a mod to burst in.....
I apologize for any offense. I had not considered this post to be a commercial endorsement, but can see how it could be taken as such. My purpose for the post is far more lofty, however. I am simply hoping to help spread the word that the Mac community has an opportunity to help bring Thoth back from retirement, and feel this forum is read by those who can make a difference. Thoth is an important body of work for many who frequent Usenet, and I think it is exciting that we might soon run it natively on MacIntel boxen.
I have edited my original text to quieten the commercial tone it had. I remain humble and open to suggestion on how to better spread the word.
Clark charged for products (both Thoth and YA-NewsWatcher) whose "leveraged" source code license (from Northwestern University, originally written by John Norstad) requires that any products developed from the code must be free. Clark is infamous for twice withdrawing his applications from the public, not because of "falling sales" but because he didn't feel he was "appreciated" by the Mac community.
If you want to support a quality newsreader, I suggest encouraging Simon Fraser to continue development of MT-NewsWatcher, a free product - based on the same original source code as Thoth - from someone who has continuously supported Mac users in a positive way.
Why do people still use Usenet?
I'm still waiting for the day when I can appropriately finger people again.
(And if you thought that was a dirty sentence, you're still a net newbie.
Originally posted by Voxapps
Just my two cents, but bear in mind the famous saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Brian Clark has long been recognized as one of Mac software's premier prima donnas. This is an opinion shared by many: you can read up on Brian Clark and his history with the Mac community in a loooong Usenet thread here.
Clark charged for products (both Thoth and YA-NewsWatcher) whose "leveraged" source code license (from Northwestern University, originally written by John Norstad) requires that any products developed from the code must be free. Clark is infamous for twice withdrawing his applications from the public, not because of "falling sales" but because he didn't feel he was "appreciated" by the Mac community.
If you want to support a quality newsreader, I suggest encouraging Simon Fraser to continue development of MT-NewsWatcher, a free product - based on the same original source code as Thoth - from someone who has continuously supported Mac users in a positive way.
Mention Brian Clark in a newsgroup and you are bound to read much polarized discussion. My experiences with Brian have been very positive. Personally, I feel many of the negative feelings stem from his abandoning both YA-NewsWatcher and Thoth at different points.
I've not conversed with Brian regarding why he withdrew YA-NewsWatcher, but the license for NewsWatcher would not allow him to leverage that codebase for profit. So it would follow that Brian coded Thoth independently as it was his desire to make a go of developing shareware. (Contrary to rumor, John Norstad has been recently cited that it is his belief that Brian has not violated copyright with Thoth.) The reason that Thoth was withdrawn is cited in my original post for this thread, as per discussion with Brian. I've never heard him mention anything about not feeling appreciated.
Of course, another option would be to encourage Simon Fraser to continue with his exceptional work. But Thoth is more mature and brings greater functionality to the table, no doubt largely due to the many hours that Brian was able to devote to it when working on shareware full time. I doubt Simon has this same advantage, and it is a lot to ask of him.
1. He has twice withdrawn commercial products from the market and refused to provide ongoing support, apparently for "personal" reasons. Potential customers should be aware of his sensitivity when considering whether to invest in his software.
2. There is an open question as to whether his charging for software based initially on university-licensed code was ethical.
What's the use of a Usenet client in the 21st century? Aside from the vast troves of pr0n and pirated software and MP3s
Originally posted by Voxapps
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2. There is an open question as to whether his charging for software based initially on university-licensed code was ethical.
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I see no need to apologize. Having downloaded Thoth back in the day, I was at a loss to see any significant difference between it and Newswatcher. YA-Newswatcher had been my favorite implementation, but that does not mean that its implementer should convert his version of a public domain app into a commercial one.